After seeing that I was there with Sasha and Nikita, Sagon was inspired to fly up his own family from Bali -- his beautiful wife, Dewi, daughter (Leila, 12) and son (Kaizan, 4), and we made an excursion to Sea World and some amusement parks which Nikita enjoyed a lot. There were some amazing and exotic fish, such as the Vampire shark and the near extinct baby dugong. Sasha really dug Sagon and his family (always a precarious situation, introducing one's husband to a male friend for fear of jealous -- I've lost touch with many a male friend since marrying) and now really wants to visit Bali. Hopefully we'll have another opportunity to vist Indonesia again soon.

By the time I got to Japan (on November 29th on an overnight flight from Jakarta into Narita), I was ready and badly in need of gentler food. My good friend Yuki, who we had dinner with that night, bought me an herbal remedy that he says he takes when his stomach is under the weather, and that combined with watching what I ate for a few days finally cured me.

My first gig (Dec 1) was at Club Air in Daikanyama with Higuchi-san and Masa. After Jakarta, Masa had apparently also suffered my same fate and had gone to the hospital to get some medication; fortunately, he was recovering finally. He had a really interesting percussions et up using primarily jembe, a bass drum like thing, and other toys. The gig was at 2:00 a.m. and I was totally dying for sleep, but somehow had great energy once on stage. Playing with Masa for me is SO much fun and I feel really comfortable and inspired by his playing. Rythmically we match really well. He is quickly becoming my favorite drummer to play with.

That same day, I had gotten together with an old school mate of mine who I absolutely adore, Morleigh Steinberg, who I hadn't seen since around 1998. She's a modern dancer, used to be in several famous dance troupes, did a lot of high profile choreography, and is now married to Edge from U2, who were on tour at the moment in Japan. It was SO great to see her and she was as beautiful and amazing as the last time I saw her. She also had her son (Levi, 6) and daughter (9) and nephew (Keiden, 9) with her. I had taken Nikita to the Pokemon Center the day before and gotten the boys some newly released pokemon cards, and they were all over it! It's so great to see Nikita getting along with my friend's kids. We got together also with percussionist Yas Kaz who gave me his recently released CD in which I had collaborated and sang on a tune, recorded many years before. They all came to see us that night at Air and it was fun introducing Masa and Hibuchi-san to Edge. It was really sweet of them to come and show support, and I was really proud to sing in front of Morleigh who had never heard me sing before -- when we went to school together, I was still studying classical flute. Morleigh is and has always been one of my favorite people on earth who I have admired over the years, and continues to effect and inspire me today as a level of humanness and artistry I aspire to reach.

Welcome to my CD Participant Package for the "Flow" project! I'm excited to share with you the unfolding of my new album from the conceptualization, all the creative processes from writing to demos, the recording, to the final product, the album...